Loving Fiercely

The title of this post was actually going to be Living Fiercely and then my hands knew better and wrote Loving.

A disease like Alzheimers or Fronto-temporal dementia rearranges the way a person sees life, love.  These days in particular, talk about love is everywhere.  Love is an action, not just a feeling.  I can have feelings of love and just sit off to the side and watch a tragedy unfold.  Or I can get up off my ass and do something.

In my Mom's case, my doing something is talking with her daily, sometimes multiple times a day (if she forgets we talked earlier), she only wants to hear my voice, know how I'm doing - that I'm ok, and laugh with me.  But it's more than that.  It's helping Voyageur, asking her what I can do to help (she often does not tell me, nor think of what I can do to help).  So often it's strategizing how to handle a particular situation, an upcoming holiday or finding a phone number.  And then, of course, there's the stuff of educating the public/private sector of this disease.  That's easy for me - write some letters, pick up the phone, maybe post on this blog.

The tougher piece is the long haul.  What Voyageur calls exhaustipated.  The point where there is no energy, no fight left.  The days bleed together.  Which doctor was to be called today?  Oh shit, Mom screwed up the remote again and lost it.  Or these days, the hallucination/delusions are throughout the day and seem to occur daily.  F#@k.  Some days there are no other words.  But, as with a new mother and her newborn baby, there is no choice but to do what's in front of us.  To dig deep and move from a place of love, even when it seems the well has run dry.  

I am not much of a biblical person, but the passage on Love shadows any Webster definition of love:

Love is patient, Love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dis-honor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails. 

Or, as I like to say, LOVE WINS!  When I re-read those words, Love is fierce.  Patient, kind, protects, always hopes and always perseveres.  F#@king fierce for sure!  Love is what dials Mom's phone number when I'm tired, love is what finds the time to fly back home and spend time with her, love is keeping hope that some of the symptoms will never touch her, and as Voyageur pointed out earlier, Love is finding love in a hopeless place.  Loving fiercely today fo sho!

Back at ya Voyageur!